Last Chance to Enter!
Hunker down and finalize your creative nonfiction entry for this year's contest! The extended deadline is Friday, August 5 (postmark date for mailed entries) at midnight (PST) to send in submissions. Grand prize is $1,000 and books!
Send us your best personal essay, memoir, biography, travel piece, social commentary, or historical account... if it's real and creative—and between 2000 to 3000 words—we want to read it!
All entrants receive a complimentary one-year subscription to the Malahat. Entries cost between $35 and $45 depending on where you live. All additional entries cost $15, no limit.
This year's contest judge is Lee Maracle. Read a recent interview with her to see what she'll be looking for in entries.
Submit your work today to be considered for the grand prize!
Read about last year's CNF Contest winner, Maria Tessa Liem.
Summer Creative Nonfiction Interview: "Women and Children" by Kelly Bouchard
Malahat creative nonfiction board member and UVic Writing instructor Frances Backhouse talks with Kelly Bouchard about his experiences at a Las Vegas homeless shelter. Bouchard explores the delicate nature of homelessness, recovery, and moral compromises in "Women and Children."
FB: Let's start with the genesis of this story. In the footnote, you explain that it came out of the month you spent living in and around the Las Vegas Rescue Mission in 2012. Did you go there with the idea that you would write about it at some point? Did you take notes or write anything about the experience at the time? How did your in-the-moment writing (or lack of it) help or hinder you in writing "Women and Children"?
KB: Yes. I went to the Rescue Mission with the idea of writing about it. The notes and journal entries I made have proved invaluable in writing this piece and in my general reflections on the period. But the fact that I went to the Rescue Mission in order to write about it, and not because I had to, is also one of the most problematic and complicated factors I have to consider whenever I reflect on my time there. It's an additional layer of the experience that makes writing about it much more complex.
I'll explain a little further. I'm a middle-class Canadian. I went to Vegas because Vegas seemed to bring together so many of the contradictions of not only American, but North American and global society. It's a place where so much is promised and so little given. It's a place where a very few thrive at the expense of many. ... I went to Vegas, and ultimately the Rescue Mission, because I wanted to see the dark side of Vegas'—and, by extension, America's—glittery promise.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
Summer Fiction Interview: "Seventeen Comments" by Elyse Friedman
Malahat fiction board member Lee Henderson talks with Elyse Friedman about the role of social media in 21st century literature. Her story, "Seventeen Comments," is a humoristic take on a website's comments section, exploring how Internet users take advantage of online anonymity to scathe and troll others in the virtual world.
Join in! Read Friedman's story online, and add your own thoughts to the comments section at the end of the story.
LH: Social media is a relatively contemporary phenomenon and something writers are still grappling with, perhaps. I haven't seen a lot of fiction that deals directly with the impacts of social media on our lives. How has social media and the conversations you see on the internet changed the way you think about fiction?
EF: Social media has become a part of my fiction because I write contemporary stories. It's such a huge part of everyday life; it would be unnatural if it weren't woven into stories that are set in the here and now. It was part of my last novel, The Answer to Everything, which was about an artist who starts a cult to make money. The cult used social media and a website to spread the good word and solicit funds. In my new novel, a man reconnects with a junior high school crush on Facebook, and a woman goes to peculiar lengths to seek refuge from the ubiquitous digital onslaught. In the latter example, the online world isn't just part of the story, it actually inspired the story—I sometimes feel overwhelmed by technology and try to run away from it.
Read the rest of this interview on the Malahat website.
